Category: Stories & Lore

Mooros is one of the Oyarsa. Player clerics can choose him to gain access to the Light domain.

Mooros is a big part of Felmoor, and this quick introduction doesn’t really do him justice, BUT we’re starting the campaign on SAT and I’m kindof rushing to get as much down on paper as possible.

Mooros the One-eyed, the Giant King, Lord of Earth

Relationship with FollowersMooros is an active and visible force in the world. It is an unusual individual who has not heard one or two of the many stories told about him. His largely benevolent interactions with the planestrange. Those who come face to face with the Lord of Earth encounter both his humor, and his austerity: two enduring qualities which his personality unites in a way that only an immortal nature could.

Teachings & PhilosophyMooros the one-eyed is associated with wisdom. It is said that He can always see through Svjart’s disguises. Mooros teaches strength, responsibility and honor, but above all else, truth. His followers are expected to meditate in order to uncover the deepest thoughts and motivations of their own heart. He will not tolerate selfishness or evil intent among his followers.

NotesIn power and in wisdom, Mooros is the greatest of the Oyarsa. In Felmoor, his influence and voice ring loudest through the bones of the earth. Following the fracture, Mooros stood between the world and complete destruction. In those early centuries, he did his work well; shoring up the broken, jagged pieces of the world, mending the walls of reality and putting distance between Felmoor and the encroaching void. Now, Sohmna has taken over much of his work, and Mooros is engaged in other tasks. He wars with the fiend-queen Tishma in the lowest bowels of Felmoor where the earth is thin and the void seeps through the fissures in the floor of the world.

He is depicted as a giant with broad shoulders and enormous hands, wreathed in white fire.

Sohmna is one of the Oyarsa. Cleric players can choose her to gain access to the Tempest domain

Sohmna, Sailor Beyond the Horizon.

Relationship with FollowersShe is beloved by shipwrights, explorers and widows. While there was a time when Sohmna lived in human communities, few now living have met her in the flesh. Most of those who follow her have encountered her in dreams. She is a comforter to those who mourn for something lost, a guide to sailors, and a muse to would-be explorers who long for distant places and strange sights.

Teachings & PhilosophySohmna has no teachings. She is a mostly silent patron, and her disciples have only her complicated, sometimes contradictory example to follow. Some choose to focus on her strength, becoming clerics driven by duty and responsibility towards the world and it’s inhabitants. Some focus on her independence and ingenuity, becoming adventurers, or explorers.

NotesSohmna is the most complex personality among the allies of Mooros. Once the most approachable of the Maiar, she is now the most distant, although she has not lost her compassionate spirit. She is thought to play a very active part in the preservation of the universe; a role she requested of Mooros following the death of her mortal husband. Her undertaking keeps her on the periphery of the world, mending and repairing the cracked and broken edges of reality. The great Halls of Sohmna, long neglected and empty, lie somewhere beyond the edges of the explored world; legend says they stands at the place where the endless river empties into the void. She is depicted as a grey-hooded figure standing astride the deck of a white-sailed vessel on stormy seas, white-eyed, raven-haired, and haloed in lightning. In one hand she carries a silver spear and in the other a builder’s hammer.

Svjart is one of the Oyarsa. Clerics players can choose him to gain access to the trickery domain.

Svjart, Father of Merry Rogues

Relationship with followersSvjart is perhaps the most erratic and inscrutable member of the oyarsa. In the past, his followers have been individuals who befriended him before they knew his true identity. He asks very little from his followers. More than all else, he abhors slavery and he expects his followers – known to many as “the unholy men of Svjart” – to abhor slavery as well. A sense of humor and an ability to laugh at oneself is also a requirement. Many “unholy men” have had their power taken away as a penalty for “taking things too seriously.”

Teachings & Philosophy
Most oyarsa avoid formal teaching, preferring instead to lead by example. Svjart differs in that he does not seem interested in leading at all. Followers of Svjart come from many backgrounds and beliefs.

NotesSvjart is associated with change, planning, and artifice. His true form is unknown, for he is able to take any form he chooses. It is often speculated that he has no true form. It may be that Svjart’s nature is essentially mercurial; one form is no “truer” than another, and his truest shape is the one he wears in the moment. Most often he appears as a winking rogue, clenching a carved floatstone pipe between his teeth, smoking like the 5 hells. Like Eldrethine, Svjart spends his time in Felmoor, having laughs at the expense of mortals. Jokes, pranks and swindles are his domain, although he has an enthusiastic collaborator in Mooros.

Pejora is one of the oyarsa. Cleric players can choose her to gain access to the knowledge domain.

Pejora, Attendant of Unexamined Knowledge

Relationship with followers
The large majority of Pejora’s followers – record keepers, accountants, historians, scholars and writers – have met her in person exactly once, during the interview they underwent for the position of “librarian.” Librarians of Pejora are expected to devote themselves to the preservation of all knowledge. They must also memorize as many books as they can over the course of their life.

Teachings & philosophy
Pejora teachers that all information is knowledge, all knowledge is valuable, deserving of preservation, and forceful means are justified to that end.

Notes
She sits on the chair of records and is known to rarely leave her vast and ever expanding library, located in a sub-dimension only accessible by her librarians. She is largely disinterested in life and it’s challenges. Instead, She hoards written information of almost any kind; her dimly candle-lit halls are stuffed from floor to high vaulted ceiling with books, scrolls, maps, magical devices, folios and stacks of aging parchment that have become stuck together with drips of candlewax. Immortal Pejora, while ever youthful, is stooped, near-sighted, plainly dressed, and reclusive. and reads endlessly with the aid of quicksilver-framed spectacles.

One of my favorite roleplaying podcasts, “Game Master’s Journey,” has been recording a series of episodes about the relative unpopularity of the cleric class, and how GMs can make clerics more enjoyable to play. They’ve echoed some of my own observations, and helped me think a little more clearly about what I wanted to accomplish when I created my own pantheon.

I think roleplaying works best when players feel that they have at least a minimum of orientation towards the world before they begin playing. Certainly, for me, I have never felt attracted towards a cleric or warlock character for that reason. D&D is fairly vague and careless in it’s attitude towards religion, deities, and the way that those concepts interact with the world and it’s inhabitants. Both the cleric and the warlock are conceptually dependent on a defining relationship with a supernatural world that is not clearly drawn.

In list form, here are some of the questions I thought it was pretty important to answer, and the answers:

At that time the Creator also spoke all these words: “See I have drawn a shroud across the planes, and set between us the tragic sea, that no pure spirits may cross into the west, that in their crossing, they should be clothed with a body of flesh, each according to its nature. In the new age that is coming, and has already come, spirit and spirit shall not converse face to face, but from a distance, as if through a fog and a loud wind. Until the time I will appoint, near the coming of the end of all things these things will be so.” And it was so.

This is the first recorded articulation of what most scholars call “the law of the material plane.” It is the presumptive reason for the transformation undergone by planestrange races like the Ramaki, but also explains the presence of diverse monsters and otherwise inexplicable beings found throughout Felmoorish history and legend.

Now the whole of mankind assembled at a place they had called Frenyot, on the shores of Felmoor to choose a new leader from among themselves, for Omad had been cursed and shunned the company of men, choosing instead to wander the wastelands of the far north. He lived like the wild beasts of the the world, driven mad by the many signs of mourning wrought on the earth. It was decided then, that Harad should be the leader of men, for he and his brother Hurol were the mightiest of all men there assembled. There on the plains of Freynot, Harad established the first city of men, making himself the king, and named it Maragnor, saying, “it is the first of many.” So it came to pass that Maragnor grew in splendor. As they still say:Men grow secure in guarded towers, forgetful of first destiny, and spire-spirits discern proud hearts in Maragnor, in Frenyot of broken Felmoor

To bring a warning, that a nation might be delivered out of Maragnor, Kohma and Gohma in the shape of a wolf and a lion came to Frenyot. “The spirit who hides his name,” they said, “banished from Garagnok, is coming upon you, and brings destruction with him.” 14 families gave ear to their warning and followed them East beyond the Bay that is called the place of bones. When they had traveled a great distance away from Frenyot, Komai reached down into the earth, took hold of its deep parts, and cast them towards the sky, saying, “these teeth will protect and hide you from evil,” and that is what those mountains are called still. Then Akkad and the 14 families founded Saragnor, saying “It is the second of many.”

Kohma and Gohma are not very well understood. They disappear from the histories and legends after their intervention at Maragnor. Some believe they were men, or a kind of metaphor for real events. Certainly the ruins of old Maragnor are real enough, and there is evidence enough that Saragnor was founded by refugees from Maragnor prior to its sudden destruction. Many believe Kohma and Gohma were shug-wights; spirits who have partially resisted the law of the material plane. Legends depict them as large talking animals, able to appear and disappear at will – an ability they lose as they age, eventually becoming fully corporeal fel-wights.

Armod is an important figure in Felmoorish history. While there are several Eddas in existence, (ancient books, prophetic or revelatory in nature, usually containing a cryptic mishmash of verse and arcane prose) Armod’s is by far the most intelligible, and therefore the most widely reproduced and studied.

I quoted from Armod in the player’s overview. Since I have the full document, I thought I’d post some of the longer passages from it, as it contains a lot of interesting details and nuances that don’t fit in the overview.

As I lay in the wilderness, as one struck with a mortal wound lies, these further revelations also passed before my senses:

I saw the world as it was. And the world was called “Ull” because it had been spoken from the mouth of the Creator. It’s form was as one unbroken firmament, for men had not yet known want. As far as Rel is from Ker, and as far as Tel is from Ary, there was nothing that was not Good in the shadow of the Spire. This is why men of the ancient tongue say, to this day:

Ulta ulmuraNournay heilor teobanayEri uelo ner peimeVorgedo

In that time, Men made their dwellings in the western foothills of the Spire, and the spirits lived among them also. But the spirit who withholds his name, powerful in the reckoning of Men and spirits alike, placed himself between the Spire and a man named Omad, and gave secret counsel to him against the creator’s design.

Omad, the first man, is another important figure. This is only his first appearance; he makes his way into many stories and legends.

Now, Omad was a leader among men, a man of influence in the dwellings of the Creator’s children. According to the secret counsel he had received, Omad made for himself an earthen mound near his home, and on it, he sacrificed his with his own blood, and that was the first bloodshed. He did this because the spirit which had deceived him had told him he would become more powerful even than the spirits of the celestial stars, possessing the secret of their knowledge and wisdom. In addition to this, Omad also led all men to follow his example, and commit the sin he had committed by prostituting themselves to the nameless spirit. In this way, he turned the hearts of Men away from the Spire of the creator, and caused them to forsake their first destiny, for the spirit who withholds his name had deceived him.

Then the creator’s anger burned against Omad. So great was his wrath and his roar that the very earth itself could not bear it. The foundations of the world were uprooted and torn apart and fire and liquid flame erupted from the ground. Then the stars were torn from the thrones they had set up for themselves and were shaken loose from all 7 realms of heaven and destroyed upon the splitting and frayed edges of the world.

Lithtanic scholars still ponder Armod’s reference to falling “stars.” Many believe that this is a direct reference to the Ramaki, or more likely the celestials: powerful beings believed to have migrated to Felmoor from other planes during or shortly after the fracture. Still others consider this a reference to beings that are completely unknown in the contemporary era, probably destroyed or buried entirely – lost in time.

“A curse on Omad!” proclaimed the Creator over the destruction. “And a curse upon the land that bore him! Henceforth, Ull is broken, as a sign of the doom that has fallen on man!” And so Ull has ever been broken, and a great sea has filled the desolation carved by the his anger when the foundation of the world was torn.

This last passage is the source of the false belief that the plane of Ull could be reached by sailing in a straight line due East. To many, Armod seemed to imply that the separation which divided Felmoor from Ull was only a physical one. For centuries, this theory was widely held among ruling families of the Lithtanic Kingdom, and even by members of the Stellarine Council. History records at least 5 large expeditions that launched with orders to discover a passage to Ull.